Due to being spam bombed out of my mind since i started blogging again, I have turned off comments on any posts older than 1 year, which basically means everything other than the front page since I had a LONGGGGG dry spell.

I hate doing it but I have 800 spams in moderation queue from the last THREE DAYS. I dunno why all of a sudden they have focused on me but DAMN. I get so many REAL comments get mixed into the victims headed to the trash.

So. No more comments on old posts. At least for now.

I understand my purchase of shoes on your site has renewed your faith in me as a female of the species. Maybe you can tell my mother everything is okay.

I know my prior my purchases have mostly consisted of snowglobes, paddle punches, USB toys, and generally Hong Kong made techy stuff have left this previously in doubt. So excited were you by my seemingly first “grown woman” purchase that you have begun sending me  tons of fashion foreward suggestions. I must like shoes, right? I would surely like those Rip off Manolo’s. Or that handbag. Or those dresses.

However, the shoes I bought were Birkenstocks, the very antithesis of high fashion, and they are replacing one of my pairs ( yes I have more than one) that I’ve had for about 8 years.

See? Tim Gunn is fanning himself right now.

Carrie Bradshaw I ain’t, okay? Can we agree to disagree on your suggestions for me, or do I have to buy a power tool to balance it back out?

Thanks again for all the junk I’ve bought.

jen

Today we went to the a nearby burg, they were having their annual town wide garage sale, it was a madhouse with hundreds and hundreds of yards and parking lots filled with junk. But a few things stand out, and as an avid garage sale I thought I’d make a point to mention.

1: NO ONE WANTS YOUR CLOTHES.
Seriously? You think anyone is going to rifle through a table of your old shirts to see if they are their size? People who do like to buy used clothes like to go to Goodwill, etc where they get washed, hung, organized by size or type and are easy to search. And they usually have something in mind, and  your pile of  junk ain’t helping them find it. So: DONATE IT. Get it out of the way, hell get a tax write off for it. But forget putting it out at the garage sale. No one freaking wants it, and if they are like us, if we see  sale with tables of clothes, we move on. Normally we don’t even slow the car.

2: YOUR STUFF AIN’T WORTH WHAT YOU THINK
You aren’t in a retail business, so no need to slap those up to retail prices, garage sales are for bargains and to make a few bucks (notice I said FEW), make someone happy while keeping it out of a landfill. If it’s worth so much, freaking keep it.

3: IF IT IS BROKE, TRASH IT.
That toaster ain’t gonna fix it self and for $5 I can buy one on a Target clearance that does work. Unless it’s a car, no one will buy it for parts. It’s trash, face it, embrace it. No one is going to buy it to recycle it either, unless it’s a large amount of scrap metal.

4: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BUY A FAT MARKER!
Don’t make signs with ball point pen, or a fine tip sharpie, because honey, no matter how many times you scribble over it it’s virtually invisible driving. Also, try to make sure your damned house number is on the sign! Arrows should at least be as big as a spread adult hand, and be lines at least as wide as a finger, PLEASE! If you use a colored card stock for your sign stick with BLACK ink! White paper stick with red black and blue.  DON’T even TOUCH a highlighter! Get a nice old school chizel tip marker. Get a nice fumey one too, aside from being waterproof (summer rain happens) it’ll give you a nice buzz – bonus!

5: PUT A DATE AND TIME ON YOUR SIGN
I cant tell you how many times I’ve driven to a “moving sale” following a sign only to find out they already moved. And if you can find it in your heart to actually take it down when done you will be doing a service to everyone.

Thanks, had to get that out of my system.

I know it’s been almost a year, blame twitter. I’m going to try to post at least once a week now I swear!

I joined up on Twitter in late 2007 and I love it, but it took me a few weeks to get wrap it around my brain.

Soon though it really took hold with me, and with the new job making me too busy to blog all the time I haven’t really had time to blog, but I do have time to twitter. Twitter has almost killed my personal blog, one that I’ve until recently posted to sometimes more than 3 times a week since 2001.

I’ll explain really quickly in case you live in a cave: Twitter has been called a Microblog. I like to think of it more as public short attention span text message everyone in the world can see. You can only use 140 characters as the limit on text messages for phone is roughly 160. This allows you some space for a username and since many people twitter from phones etc thus the whole character limit thing. It’s meant for short messages. “I’m at The bank, and this teller is taking foever. Bury me at Wounded knee” or to ask for tips or link to find things etc. It’s actually quite addictive.

But Twitter is being abused by crafters who are filling it full of spam who don’t understand what it is and what is frowned upon. In the past on the talk on Twitter has been about how Etsy sellers are the new spam villain there because of the (etsy staff suggested) spamming twitter with all their listings, relistings and bullcrap.

This all came after a day in early 2009 that Etsy supported called “Etsy day”. It mostly consisted of thousands of members tweeting about them, and made #etsyday go to #1 in twitter trends (that means hottest topics), while I’m sure many learned about Etsy that day it annoyed people about 1000% more people.

The thing is Etsy had been telling it’s sellers for months before this to join Twitter as it’s a “great way to promote your items!”. It’s sellers are mostly middleaged aged females, many of whom still find the whole social media thing largely a mystery – but they want to sell, so they do what the 20-somthing Etsy staff says without regard to what is appropriate or frowned on. They don’t learn the customs or culture of Twitter. They constantly relist items and dutifully tweet every last one of them like instructed. Their feeds are filled with nothing more than “check out my crap!” and links to their shops – stuff no one wants to see – and just fill Twitter with spam. If the would learn more about Twitter, and how to be a better Twitterati, some of this blatant link whoring spam would slow down.

So as a avid Tweeter, one that now “gets it” let me pass on what I know to folks out there:

• If you don’t understand Twitter, stay off it. Seriously.
  Really I mean it. It’s not a hard thing to get. If you really want to ‘get it” follow some people and learn about it before you start posting. Learn what the protocols are, how things are done. Observe then try later.
  
  
• Don’t follow everyone who follows you. This isn’t kindergarten. Do you bookmark every site you go to? You should only follow people who you enjoy reading. If someone replies to you and you like their tweets, sure go for it. Maybe it’s a start of a beautiful friendship! But if you follow 1000 people you won’t know or be able to read any of them.
• Don’t get into how many followers you have. It’s no an indication as your worth as a person. Just means you have that many people who think you suck less than other people. Don’t go trolling for followers. The ones that will follow you blindly aren’t reading you anyway, they want you to follow them, so THEY can spam YOU. It’s better to have 200 followers who like what you say rather than 2000 who don’t see a word.
• No one gives a crap what you sell. Really. I mean it. NO ONE. I am not saying you can’t promote your things but don’t flood the twittersphere with them. Keep them to a few a week, tops. Show more what you are proud of than what you have and have more to offer than what you sell.
• Not everyone uses twitter as you do. That means Twitter wasn’t made for you to spam, It was made to connect people not hawk products to them.
• It’s a conversation, with or without people. I said it in a tweet once to someone about all the celebrities that are on Twitter now: “They don’t get that it’s SOCIAL media, not LOOK AT ME-dia”. Most don’t reply to anyone, ever, but just blather about their day as if it’s the word of god from on high. Most ordinary twitter people don’t get that either. Many sellers think it was invented to be text advertising, and it wasn’t.If you talk to people more than you talk at them and you’ll likely be a halfway decent Twitterati.
• People who are funny are better tweeters. If you are missing the humor gene, STFU. Really. There are enough crotchety killjoys out there already.
• Don’t tweet everything you do, less is more. And by extension: Random is more fun that minutia. I’ve been known to just tweet that “I Like Fruit Punch!” or “I just ate ham with my fingers because I’m a fancy lady!” the like and I’ll get people replying how they do too! It’s weird but funny in it’s own way.
• Find those who do what you do. I like to tweet during TV shows I’ve found some great other fans that way! (Run a search for your say a TV name while it is showing or a band, or your crafty art, and you’ll find some new people who enjoy it too. It really is a great way to find people.)
• Ask the twittersphere. It’s a great place to ask for advice, tips, links… give the same to others too. Find a funny link? I wanna see!
• More than your “followers” see your posts. Many people use various apps for Twitter and many like to view (at least sometimes) tweets by everyone along side the ones they are following. So if you send out those tweets on your items for sale you ARE spamming everyone indiscriminately without meaning to.

Okay, that’s the basics I think. Just some tips to keep in mind, but again – if you don’t get it, you don’t have to. Many of us do. Shrug it off as a mystery of life and move on.

Yes I’m still alive. Just busy.
Anyway, I have noticed there is a new campaign out for a lady shaver recently, and they take divergent angles to the same point. One is British I think, the other I saw on TV in the US here. The latter was so subtle Mr Man didn’t even know what it was about the first time before I had to explain it with the power of TiVo. It’s nice to see they are going after women with some humor for once.

I know my readers, if I have any left, enjoy my video finds, so here you go!

Cried like a crazy woman during the inaugural, everytime I'd see someone on TV crying it'd get me too. And I'm not a crier. Just so incredible.

Last night Mr Man and I went out to eat, O'Charlie's nothing fancy, it was there, but the place was packed. I mean every seat packed. On a wednesday. It's never busy to go out to eat here on Wednesdays. The place was upbeat and chatty.

I told Mr Man it was "Hope". Evidentially it smells like chargrilled steak.

MMMM, hope, rare indeed.

Long time readers know that I always post the wost, most fucked up, most depressing holiday song I know of as a yearly tradition… this year is no different!

Red Sovine's "Faith In Santa"

It has everything you want at Xmas… a part time store Santa – and a dying abused homeless boy!

(It's only a "song" in that same way that Willian Shatner is a "recording artist".)

I have been up to my eyeballs in work. Ugh.

Everyday a version 1 page of the new artfire site is coming up, and I'm desiging stuff every day, all day, to keep the programmers busy.All chock full of features to make sellers cry with joy.

 I'm filling it so full of killer tool ideas, and such a complete solution that I'm expecting Etsy to shut me down at any time out of pure spite claiming I'm an enemy combatant or something. So if you want to buy from me come to my Artfire shop, but don't expect it quick, I'm working so long and hard that I'm having problems finding time to make orders.  I'm happy about that though. I like being busy, and they are loving my work, as are the other sellers. Just wait till they see it all done.

Call me Dr Nick, because I'm gonna kill Big E. ::: Insert evil laugh here:::

 Otherwise life is good, My npehew is getting even more adorable:

I know, I can't believe I'm related to him either. He has now officaly eaten his first IKEA food, so we're ingraing it early. ONly a couple m ore eyars before I can take him for a visit and dump him in IKEA Småland child care. I'm in!